FTX founder says he ‘didn’t steal funds’ in unusual post-arrest blog post

“As Alameda became illiquid, FTX International did as well, because Alameda had a margin position open on FTX,” Bankman-Fried wrote.

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Last month, two of his closest associates pleaded guilty to defrauding the trading platform’s customers and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors’ investigation.

Caroline Ellison, Alameda’s former chief executive, said in her plea hearing that Bankman-Fried and other FTX executives received billions of dollars in secret loans from Alameda.

Bankman-Fried was released on a $US250 million ($359 million) bond in December and put under house arrest at his parents’ Palo Alto, California home, which was pledged as collateral for his return to court.

In the post, Bankman-Fried also said FTX’s US wing is “fully solvent” and that its international unit has many billions of dollars in assets.

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“If it were to reboot I believe there is a real chance that customers could be made substantially whole,” he wrote.

The comments came after a lawyer for FTX on Wednesday told a federal bankruptcy court in Delaware that the exchange had located more than $US5 billion in liquid assets, and that the company plans to sell nonstrategic investments that had a book value of $US4.6 billion.

That does not include assets seized by the Securities Commission of the Bahamas, where FTX was based and where Bankman-Fried lived before he was extradited to the United States. Bahamian authorities say they have seized $US3.5 billion, but FTX says those funds are worth as little as $US170 million.

On Wednesday night, Bankman-Fried replied on Twitter to a user named @wassielawyer who said a sale of the FTX exchange was viable. “Yup my sense is that is and always has been the best recovery scenario for customers,” wrote Bankman-Fried.

FTX declared bankruptcy on November 11, the same day Bankman-Fried stepped down as its chief executive.

Reuters

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